tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65500125798493388682018-03-05T23:58:54.429-08:00Wicked Teacher of the WestWicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.comBlogger88125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-69562070905739186322013-07-31T14:33:00.000-07:002013-07-31T14:33:20.049-07:00Recursion: Not that hardIn July, I taught Java to about 30 high school students who had little or no prior programming experience. The curriculum was largely set for me, so I won't comment on the choice of language or lots of other things that I might be opinionated about.<br /><br />In the course of teaching the students about methods, fairly early in their experience, I gave them the challenge of figuring out how to right a program that would print out the first several numbers in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number" target="_blank">fibonacci sequence</a>. First we worked through the algorithm of how to find out a given fibonacci number: I wrote up a sequence and challenged them to figure out the formula:<br /><br /><table><tbody><tr><th><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">n</span></th><th><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">fib(n)</span></th></tr><tr><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">0</span></td><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">0</span></td></tr><tr><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">1</span></td><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">1</span></td></tr><tr><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">2</span></td><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">1</span></td></tr><tr><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">3</span></td><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">2</span></td></tr><tr><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">4</span></td><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">3</span></td></tr><tr><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">5</span></td><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">5</span></td></tr><tr><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">n</span></td><td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">???</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>After a few false starts, they figured out that fib(n) = fib(n-1) + fib(n-2) except for fib(0) = 0 and fib(1) = 1.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, to be completely honest, I had forgotten that there's an iterative way to solve fibonacci, because the recursive way is SO OBVIOUS.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>So I told them that another thing about methods, in addition to them being able to take parameters and return values, is that they can call themselves. And thus, they wrote recursive algorithms, without pain or suffering:</div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">if (n=0) {return 0;}</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">else if (n=1) {return 1;}</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">else {return (fib(n-1) + fib(n-2));}</span></div><div><br /></div><div>And some undergraduates who observed it expressed great concern because recursion is a topic they cover in data structures and therefore obviously complex and advanced and presumably inappropriate for my poor little inexperienced high schoolers. Who, I must say, did not appear confused or scarred in any way from the experience.</div><div><br /></div><div>Clearly there's lots more about recursion I didn't cover, not the least of which is why this is a pretty inefficient solution. But this experience - where recursion was the obvious solution to a problem and there was a straightforward way to handle it - seemed like a nice little introduction to the idea that a method can call itself. No need for awe and fear. And I wonder, if we just introduced recursion as the obvious solution to a few easy problems and handled the more complicated pieces later when students are more prepared, would it go better?&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>I think next time, after I gave the students a day or two to adjust to writing methods, control structures, parameters and return values, I'd return to the idea of efficiency and why some solutions are more efficient than others in different ways.&nbsp;</div>Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-81700739972370941412012-03-14T06:33:00.003-07:002012-03-14T06:48:37.268-07:00InterviewThere's an <a href="http://www.hackeducation.com/2012/03/13/middle-school-computer-science-laura-blankenship/">interview with Laura Blankenship</a> that I've been ruminating on. Laura teaches computer science to middle schoolers at an all-girls school and blogs at <a href="http://www.geekymomblog.com/">Geeky Mom</a>. <div><br /></div><div>I like her blog a lot, so it doesn't seem like I have a problem with Laura. I do seem to have a problem with the interview, which I haven't quite pinned down. </div><div><br /></div><div>Part of it is probably the quote, "8th graders hate everything." That hasn't been my experience at all! Middle schoolers like to whine, but they're also frequently engaged and excited and passionate. I think Laura would agree, so it feels like picking nits, but at the same time, the quote really bothers me, maybe because it's at the very beginning of the interview, so it sets the tone. </div><div><br /></div><div>There's something else about it too. Maybe the generalizations about what kids can and can't do. I find huge variation between students. But I'm not really sure why I keep coming back to it. Maybe because it's so short and poses a lot of questions without a lot of context or solutions.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm usually not surprised when students can't do or don't know about something complex that they've never been taught or never been asked to think about before. Have you ever thought about the electricity that powers the devices in your house? Or do you just plug things in and expect them to work? I think the web is like that for kids - unless we point out that there's a huge infrastructure behind things and that the devices (websites) they use can be deconstructed and that they could make their own things, why would they think about it? The web is just there, it's always been there, like electricity or (for those who are young enough) TV. Like electricity, we need to decide what is important enough for students to learn.</div>Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-68122675989556427962011-08-29T09:47:00.000-07:002011-08-29T10:16:55.655-07:00The Age of Cassandra<a href="http://cmbc.ucsd.edu/People/Students/marhaver/">Kristen Marhaver</a> is a PhD student studying coral biology who wrote the absolutely fascinating <a href="http://www.scienceprogress.org/2010/05/ecosystems-in-the-age-of-cassandra/">Ecosystems in the Age of Cassandra</a> in the May 5 Science Progress. She cites <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/opinion/19mon4.html">Adam Cohen's <i>New York Times</i> editorial</a> wondering why policymakers do not react appropriately to scientific warnings of impending disaster such as the Hurricane Katrina flooding, September 11th attacks, and Bernie Madoff fraudulence. <div>
<br /></div><div>Marhaver suggests that the problem is the difference in pace between science, which takes years to research and verify, and news, which doesn't spend more than a day or two on a story, especially one about scientific research or predictions. She has a number of notable suggestions for indicating to publishers and policymakers which research is really, really important and making research findings openly available. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>The comments are worth reading as well, especially for people who want to make their message heard. One journalist remarks on the importance of a <i>story</i> - protagonist, antagonist, beginning, middle, end. People respond to research written with a narrative theme. They respond to the stories of individuals too - "the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic" (<a href="http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/a-single-death-is-a-tragedy-a-million-deaths-is-a-statistic-stalin/">misattributed</a> to <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin">Stalin</a>).</div><div>
<br /></div><div>There are systemic problems leading to a failure on our part to heed important warnings. Research reports written for peer-reviewed journals aren't necessarily appropriate for lay people, even when the information is crucial. And researchers who are embedded in their own little world may miss the forest of the larger world for the trees of their own point of view. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>Scientists must find ways to choose the message and frame it in a way that important audiences can hear and act on. Policymakers have many competing interests. So does industry. So does the public at large, so do teachers, so do students, but they aren't all the same interests. It's important to figure out what messages are crucial and which can be heard and by whom. Then we can hope for success in making the world a better place.</div>Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-9387567527651024132011-08-10T10:03:00.000-07:002011-08-10T10:25:08.284-07:00Computer Science Around ProgrammingAlfred Thompson posted <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alfredth/archive/2011/08/10/computer-science-before-programming.aspx">Computer Science Before Programming</a>, where he starts by considering the new trend of courses that teach introductory CS without relying on programming-first. He quickly moves into a discussion of different levels of programming languages and focuses on the question of whether "post-syntax" languages such as Scratch, Alice, and Kodu expose the right concepts, such as how loops work. <div>
<br /></div><div>I think that even when we focus and try hard, we all too often fall into the trap of thinking that the big ideas of programming are synonymous with the big ideas of computer science. We all learned CS through programming first, and it's our mental model of how it works. Changing such an ingrained mental model, especially when nearly everyone around you is reinforcing the model, is hard. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>I believe that programming is to computer science as experimentation is to other sciences. It is the work of professionals in the field. It is how we develop new ideas. And it is a skill that must be learned before it can be used in a meaningful way.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>We don't make students experimentally derive all we know about science from first principles - we tell them the formula for acceleration, the value of the force of gravity, the periodic table of elements. We don't make them figure these things out, and it's a good thing because usually they don't have the skill or tools to accurately measure these known quantities. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>Now, some people will be saying, "but we TELL them about conditionals and loops and parameters and abstract classes!" Those are big ideas of <i>programming</i>. Not of <i>computer science</i>. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>Here are some of the big ideas of computer science:</div><div><ul><li>The design of things is impacted by the assumptions and experience of the people who make them. </li><li>The computational devices we use affect our society. And related: there are ethical implications to computational tools.</li><li>What is computing good for and what is it bad for? </li><li>How do we abstract details to model problems and find solutions? </li><li>What does it mean that computers run on binary when we have beautiful user interfaces? </li></ul><div>I can teach every one of those, and lots of others, with no formal programming languages. Programming would only get in the way of what could be a rich discussion and deep understanding. </div></div><div>
<br /></div><div>Students should experience programming - it's empowering and fun and an important part of computer science. But we shouldn't confuse the skill of programming with the concepts of computer science.</div>Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-38528606583440656872010-03-24T20:24:00.000-07:002010-03-24T22:21:12.865-07:00Ada Lovelace DayI think people who work at the intersection of computer science and other disciplines do some of the most interesting work there is. In particular, I think there are women doing amazing work at the intersection of the social sciences (like linguistics and sociology) and computer science.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/members/margolis">Jane Margolis</a> is my hero because she has looked critically at the culture of computer science and not only found ways in which it is unwelcoming to some groups (notably <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=StwGQw45YoEC&amp;dq=unlocking+the+clubhouse&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;source=bn&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=FNmqS6OJEJCCswOT_YmODA&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=4&amp;ved=0CB4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&amp;q=&amp;f=false">girls</a> and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=WOI9rGJSFCcC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=stuck+in+the+shallow+end&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=L7JTyxHWWo&amp;sig=SNN5ktOSYE1KfG16ERuC5SXRO3Y&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=OdmqS4jTJoLasgPh9K2CDA&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=3&amp;ved=0CBYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&amp;q=&amp;f=false">minorities</a>) but has also worked passionately to change it. In particular, her work with the <a href="http://intotheloop.gseis.ucla.edu/who_we_are.html">Computer Science Equity Alliance</a> is inspirational. Jane is energetic and thoughtful and perceptive, and she constantly works to make the world of computer science better.<br /><br />Jane introduced me to another of my heroes, <a href="http://www.soc.northwestern.edu/justine/">Justine Cassell</a>. I first learned of her because of the book From Barbie to Mortal Kombat. I had the opportunity to talk to her briefly at the Hopper conference this fall and was so impressed by her analytical mind and energetic presentation. Justine has also done a lot of interesting work on gender and technology.<br /><br />Finally, the researchers of <a href="http://anitaborg.org/">ABI</a> and <a href="http://ncwit.org/">NCWIT</a> earn my respect every time I talk to them. <a href="http://ncwit.org/about.team.staff.php?action=detail&amp;biosID=36">Catherine Ashcraft</a> had the most interesting observations about gendered behavior and how it is different from sex, which convinced me she's brilliant. <a href="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/people/person_details.php?PersonID=129">Lecia Barker</a> and <a href="http://anitaborg.org/about/who-we-are/caroline-simard/">Caroline Simard</a> produce consistently fascinating research.<br /><br />This post was produced for my <a href="http://blog.findingada.com/">Ada Lovelace pledge</a>. Two other posts on this subject I found inspiring today were "<a href="http://www.panopy.com/women-in-technology-why-care-about-gender/">Why Care about Gender?</a>" and "<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/2010/03/ada_lovelace_and_the_impact_of.php">The Impact of Positive Female Role Models</a>"Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-33650166581653240492010-03-20T11:58:00.000-07:002010-03-20T12:23:49.631-07:00Mental mathI believe in <a href="http://mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/index.html">growth mindset</a> - the idea that you can get better at things by working at them. It can be a hard thing to live at times - we all seem to have certain places where we have blinders about our ability to improve (or our students' ability to improve!)<br /><br />With that in mind, I have been working on my mental math abilities. I've been playing a game where I keep track of changing numbers by adding and subtracting. The numbers are pretty small - usually less than 10, though not always, but the running total can grow fairly large.<br /><br />I am sure that it's good for my brain to play this game, that I'm improving my ability to do mental math.<br /><br />Here's what I wonder, though: does it matter if I get the right answer? I have discovered at times that as I keep track of the running total, I have made computational errors - not particularly surprising, since it isn't something I'm particularly stellar at. My sense is that it's the activity of trying the math rather than getting the right answer that's important, especially since I doubt that I'm reinforcing bad math by occasionally adding numbers incorrectly. However, I can believe it would be a problem to form neural pathways to bad computation. I don't know of any studies that have looked at this, so I'm not sure we know the answer.Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-16173944399157490202010-03-03T07:43:00.000-08:002010-03-03T08:45:16.620-08:00Encountering the OtherI've been thinking a lot about constructivism and constructionism and Freire and diversity lately. I can believe that almost totally open-ended discussions and activities can be engaging and educational. <span style="font-style: italic;">(Almost</span> totally open-ended! Not <span style="font-style: italic;">totally</span> open-ended! Though there's a good point in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mathematicians-Lament-School-Fascinating-Imaginative/dp/1934137170">A Mathematician's Lament</a> that anything one doesn't stumble across in 12 years of thinking about a topic probably isn't all that important.)<br /><br />I am thinking of knowing the kind of activity you want kids to engage in, but allowing them to propose all the particulars. Let them figure out what the important parts are. Say you want them to learn how to write a program. Ask them what kind of program they want to write. What kind of problems do they have that could be solved with a program? Then let them figure out (with support) how to write the program - they figure out the constructs, you provide the syntax. It's just-in-time teaching. At an extreme, you might even be able to let them figure out what they wanted to learn at all in the context of your class, but without them knowing something about the context it seems like proposing problems is a better way to start.<br /><br />I have a hard time believing this way of teaching is scalable - how can you get all the thousands of teachers in this country to be that open-ended? It's hard and you have to have an incredible grasp of the material to be able to guide students gently. (Or perhaps you could pull it off if you knew nothing, with teacher and class learning it together, but that's not comfortable for most teachers!) That said, as I have practiced open-ended teaching more and more, I've become better at it, which makes me think it is teachable, which means it might be scalable. It would require a sea change in how we think about education - we might not get to all the standards this way.<br /><br />The extreme educational theorists believe in this way of teaching because of its respect for students' culture and experience. And I haven't ever questioned that, except to contemplate that the historical role of education in the US is to inculturate children into the dominant value set and that if we take underprivileged students and fail to give them that clue, we do them a disservice when they have to compete as adults in the dominant culture. (I am a terrible teacher because I will regularly point out to underprivileged students how to fly under the radar like the privileged kids do.)<br /><br />So it was with great interest that I read Siobhan Curious' latest post: <a href="http://siobhancurious.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/encountering-the-other-how-literature-will-save-the-world/">Encountering the Other</a> about the role of literature in our lives. Specifically, she has a quote from a Harper's article <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2009/09/0082640">Dehumanized: When Math and Science Rule the School</a>:<br /><blockquote>Happily ignoring the fact that the whole point of reading is to force us into an encounter with the other, our high schools and colleges labor mightily to provide students with mirrors of their own experience, lest they be made uncomfortable, effectively undercutting diversity in the name of diversity.</blockquote>One is wise enough to think one should tread lightly on a discussion of valuing diversity vs. valuing the dominant culture (as though one can't value both!) So one will stop writing now other than to wonder what you think?Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-26748361231864638472010-02-23T20:35:00.000-08:002010-02-23T22:52:59.214-08:00Cultural and Gendered ValuesI can't remember when I first heard about the work at Georgia Tech on African Americans and gaming. Maybe it was in <a href="http://computinged.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/how-high-school-students-start-thinking-about-code/">a post</a> of Mark Guzdial's? Anyway, I thought <a href="http://www.racialicious.com/2010/02/22/gaming-masculinity-video-games-as-a-reflection-on-masculinity-in-computer-science-and-african-american-culture-conference-notes/#more-5758">this post by Latoya Peterson</a> was very interesting. My favorite quote applies to far more than just African American males:<br /><blockquote>Hacker culture is privileged in the CS learning environment, meaning that many students are drawn to the program because of their existing skills. This marginalizes many students who decide to enter at the college level, and do not have years of experience experimenting with programs on their own. CS programs also tend to trend toward the strongest programmers in the class, encouraging a DIY approach to learning, and leaving behind students who are new to the discipline.</blockquote>On the one hand, we want to value diverse cultures, and I know that many people who succeed in this culture feel marginalized in the broader culture. And isn't it true that in many programs, particular skill-sets are valued? On the other hand, it certainly gives me pause that it's so difficult to enter the discipline as early as college, especially given that many students have no access to computer science <span style="font-style: italic;">before</span> they get to college. Look at how many other (related, even) disciplines are welcoming to students who have no prior experience, even at the graduate level - information science, education, and business being obvious examples.<br /><br />We keep talking about how to increase the pipeline and have more graduates. I think a major part of the problem is the culture. Computer science is not a welcoming culture. Wouldn't it be great if instead of being denigrated, newcomers were encouraged and supported?<br /><br />I see that Mark has <a href="http://computinged.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/glitch-and-gaming-masculinity-video-games-as-a-reflection-on-culture/">a new post</a> up pointing out especially the comments relating to the class aspects brought up in the comments, along with a link to another post about this topic.Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-75494032585811989592010-02-21T21:21:00.000-08:002010-02-21T21:45:33.541-08:00Public Service Announcement: CS & IT SymposiumFor years, I have maintained that the very best day of professional development in my year is the day of the CSTA CS&amp;IT Symposium. And since I've always wondered if it was just me, I have been gratified both to see references to other people posting this thought on the web, and one notable year when in the symposium feedback I found out that someone wrote, "Wicked Teacher of the West said this was the best PD day of the year and she was right!" So you can take it from <span style="font-style: italic;">many</span> anonymous strangers on the web that it's great!<br /><br />For K-12 computer science teachers, this is a full day of PD just for you, with options whether you teach IT applications, AP CS, or anything in between - and not just high school either, there are sessions applicable to lower grades too.<br /><br />The symposium gets better and better every year. The keynotes are thought-provoking, and the breakout sessions are full of ideas to take right back to the classroom. In fact, my biggest complaint about the day is that there are always multiple sessions I want to attend at the same time! And finally, the lunch is excellent - it's worth the price of admission for the great food and chance to spend time with other teachers!<br /><br />Registration for the symposium is now open. It will be held on July 13 at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA. The registration is limited to 200 people and last year they did 'sell out' so I'd encourage you not to procrastinate. Registration information and more details are at the symposium <a href="http://csta.acm.org/ProfessionalDevelopment/sub/CSITSymposiaSite.html">website</a>. (www.csitsymposium.org)<br /><br />If you want to make it into a vacation, not only are there mountains, sun, the Pacific Ocean a short drive away, but Mountain View is a mecca for geeks, particularly the Computer History Museum, the Tech Museum in San Jose, and the Exploratorium in San Francisco.Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-50912656624147853162010-01-18T00:57:00.000-08:002010-02-12T08:43:30.152-08:00Taking a breakI've finished nearly all of the grading - enough to think of myself as done, although I have four extra credit projects still unassessed. Fortunately they'll be easy because any kid good enough to have done extra credit is likely to have done it well. Also they're unlikely to change my assessment of those students - kids motivated enough to do extra credit have usually been doing well all along. I will of course look at the projects tomorrow.<br /><br />Before I go to bed, I want to post a few articles I've come across but haven't felt the luxury to form complete commentary on. The articles are good enough to stand alone; you should read them!<br /><br />The Atlantic looked at Teach for America's upcoming report on <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/good-teaching/">What Makes a Great Teacher?</a> I hope to take the ideas, especially about constant re-evaluation and changing what doesn't work, and implement them this semester.<br /><br />I have thought Lisa Damour was fabulous ever since I heard her speak about Growth Mindset and Stereotype threat. I think the things she is looking at are important and I think she's smart and able to explain things in a way that are easy to understand. So I was pleased to see her article about <a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/11/11/11damour.h29.html?tkn=ZMVCglLBjuxMc3wl84paC26kHR5S92w47uh4">teaching girls to tinker</a> in Education Week. And that was before I knew she mentions computer science!<br /><br />Clay Shirkey's <a href="http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/01/a-rant-about-women/">Rant About Women</a> is getting a fair amount of play. I *really* want to know what <a href="http://www.cc.gatech.edu/%7Eyardi/">Sarita Yardi</a> thinks, since I can tell she has strong opinions but so far I haven't seen them. I'm willing to overlook the strong language and think he has some very good points. I'm sure my opinion is informed by the fact that I've been trying to do some self-aggrandizing writing lately and I'm not very good at making it sound like I'm all that.<br /><br />I'm trying to be more positive in 2010. So the article from Teacher Magazine about having better classroom management by <a href="http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2010/01/13/tln_schwartz_management.html?tkn=VXTFk%2BEGCOFSy7hGHn33L1m4Gx%2FpkbYZBwr%2B">focusing on the positive</a> was nicely timed. I'm not seeing stuffed animals in the classroom in my future, but maybe I can yell less.Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-38889163191218991822010-01-15T16:36:00.000-08:002010-02-12T08:43:30.161-08:00Looking for the motivation fairyI'm supposed to be writing grades, but I'm having an impossible time settling down and getting anything done. When it became obvious that working from home wasn't working, I came to school. So far that has prompted me to open my gradebook, which is a step in the right direction, but more of a baby step than a meaningful step.<br /><br />I'm not even engaging in <a href="http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/">structured procrastination</a>, just kind of noodling around.<br /><br />Please, motivation fairy, show up soon!Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-37215969499517325212010-01-08T08:06:00.000-08:002010-02-12T08:43:30.171-08:00Who Are You?During the holiday break, I attempted to declutter my craft closet. The craft supplies are organized by craft in boxes in a closet, but the closet was stuffed to the gills, making it hard to get to many of the boxes, which is a major barrier to doing the crafts. It was time for some of the supplies to go.<br /><br />I weeded the contents of boxes, getting rid of supplies I don't really like and won't use. In some cases, I <a href="http://unclutterer.com/2008/04/04/saying-farewell-to-a-hobby/">weeded crafts</a>, emptying out whole boxes.<br /><br />I got stuck when it came to one craft. I have nice supplies. I like them. They're well organized and fit nicely into the space they're in, so getting rid of some of them is harder than getting rid of none or all. I realized that I am not ready to let go of my vision of myself as a person who does that craft.<br /><br />We have a lot of visions of ourselves, labels we apply. Most CS teachers I know think of themselves as programmers. Few think of themselves as computer scientists.<br /><br />I wonder how this affects our students. Are our labels accurate? Are you a programmer, if you know how to program and do it sometimes, but not often? Are you a programmer if you love to program but almost never do it? Does it affect how you think about curriculum if you think of yourself as a programmer but not a computer scientist? Do the kids pick up on your attitudes about yourself and what you do?Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-28607280628651843402010-01-06T23:00:00.000-08:002010-02-12T08:43:30.181-08:00Dear people: you can changeAlthough I am quite sure there are cultural influences at work keeping women and other underrepresented groups out of computing, I have not been all that excited by the recent reports about <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34437233/ns/technology_and_science-science/">Geeks Drive Women Out of CS</a>. I think the research being reported on is important and valid, but I am underwhelmed by the reporting itself, starting with the headline.<br /><br />However, a <a href="http://cowpuppyranch.com/2010/01/05/geeks-drive-girls-out-of-computer-science/">blog post by the same name</a> with recommendations for girls, boys, and teachers, aimed at getting more girls into CS classes was entertaining, accessible, and way better than the articles I've read. Yes, some of it relies heavily on stereotypes. But I'm delighted by a slightly snarky attitude that suggests resilience and demands welcoming attitudes.<br /><br /><a href="http://cowpuppyranch.com/2010/01/05/geeks-drive-girls-out-of-computer-science/">Go read it</a>. Really!Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-18720629362902103832010-01-02T09:57:00.000-08:002010-02-12T08:43:30.194-08:00ResolutionsI don't like New Year's Resolutions.<br /><br />First, they seem ill-timed to me. I read a line in the last week or two about how terrible a time of year this is to make resolutions, especially weight loss ones. It's dark all the time, so you don't want to get out and exercise. It's winter so there's no good fresh produce. "I resolve to do something that will be nearly impossible! Yay!" For me, like many teachers and students, the new year begins in September.<br /><br />Second, I don't really like the word 'resolutions'. I like the word 'goals'. Goal leaves more room to not succeed without actually failing.<br /><br />I have found that I do better when I let goals just happen to me, rather than making them. I feel like making some change, so I make it, without waiting for the new year or forcing myself to make a change because it's the new year. It means I change when I'm ready to change, which means I'm more likely to be successful.<br /><br />However, I am intrigued by the <a href="http://zenhabits.net/2009/12/the-definitive-guide-to-sticking-to-your-new-years-resolutions/">6 Changes</a> approach to creating new habits. I like the parts about making something a habit (not a resolution!), it's based on triggers, and you don't have to change everything at the same time. I don't like the part about breaking it into baby steps.<br /><br />What I need to do is figure out a system for keeping my to do list. Don't know how to break that one into baby steps!<br /><br />I also need to get my head out of vacation mode and back into school mode! I have tests to grade, paragraphs to write, and lessons to plan. But it's been a relaxing couple of weeks.Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-5655597874026170772009-12-25T20:02:00.000-08:002010-02-12T08:43:30.201-08:00Leaving Some Children Behind?As seems wont to happen at family gatherings, today I got into a political discussion with some family members. We discussed performance-based pay, and the discussion moved into performance-based pay for teachers.<br /><br />Personally, I'm a fan of performance-based pay for teachers IF it truly reflects the performance of the individual teacher. If students took a test at the beginning of the term and at the end, and the teacher's performance was based on students' mastery of material, gained during the time they were taught by that teacher, then okay. According to an <a href="http://www.gladwell.com/2008/2008_12_15_a_teacher.html">article</a> by Malcolm Gladwell, "Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year's worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half's worth of material." However it is that Hanushek is figuring it out, if we used that measure and it's accurate, that sounds good to me.<br /><br />The negative reaction I got was mystifying.<br /><br />First, I was challenged on whether it is possible to actually judge performance. It is true, we don't currently have instruments that judge student performance in all disciplines, only in the ones that are currently part of the "core". However, tests <span style="font-style: italic;">could</span> be developed that would measure what we say we're teaching. Standardized tests that test the curriculum aren't always bad - teachers <span style="font-style: italic;">should</span> be teaching the curriculum, and if they shouldn't then the curriculum should be changed. (I'm not discussing school-based bonuses where all teachers are paid based on student performance on core standardized tests, I'm arguing individual performance.)<br /><br />The example given? PE. Apparently it's impossible to test how far or fast a student can run at the beginning of the term and test it again at the end of the term to see if there's a difference. Or if it's <span style="font-style: italic;">possible</span> then it isn't <span style="font-style: italic;">fair</span> because, apparently, motivating students to perform or otherwise getting them to do the curriculum is more than a teacher should be responsible for.<br /><br />I suggested that good teachers are able to get their students to learn the material. Period. That's what makes someone a good teacher.<br /><br />I was told that I'm unrealistic, because I work in a private school. I don't understand what it's like to have a classroom of 40 kids (largely true) who have varying ability and interest (untrue). It's<span style="font-style: italic;"> not possible</span> to support the low kids and help them rise while at the same time boosting the ones who are already above grade level. (You know, like by differentiating instruction and assignments.) A teacher should not be held equally responsible for a kid who is low and truly unable to grasp the material and for one who is low but highly capable.<br /><br />I am venting here, because Christmas is so not the time to get into a huge fight with a close family member who is being... um... argumentative, but to say I was dismayed is an understatement.<br /><br />I kept thinking about a master teacher I know. The thing that makes this teacher great is that he believes that every student can master the material. For some kids it's easy, for others it's a challenge, but he knows that every kid can do it. He doesn't teach easy stuff either, and I've never seen him dumb down material - he has high expectations. But he is willing to go the extra mile, help students who need it, and believe in them. He lives <a href="http://mindsetonline.com/">growth mindset</a>.<br /><br />I don't think teachers should be held responsible for students' prior knowledge nor should they be held responsible for what happens to a kid outside of school, and both those things do impact the student who shows up in class. But a teacher should be held responsible for how much knowledge they impart to students in their class. All students, not just the polite ones, not just the likeable ones, not just the ones who are at grade level. It does a disservice to the rest to ignore them and refuse to be responsible for teaching them too. Why would a teacher be okay with leaving some children behind?Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-43374528579298797102009-11-22T11:04:00.000-08:002010-02-12T08:43:30.217-08:00Not as hard as you thinkMy students are working on a project right now, where they have to digitize three-dimensional objects by specifying points in an x,y,z format. They then have to describe quads which have four points.<br /><br />This is really good for the students. It's part of our unit on digitizing data, so it's good for them to understand how real-life objects get mapped into and modeled by the computer. But even better, it's good for them to practice spacial skills. Spacial skills are the one area (of math) where girls really do fall behind boys in brain development, so practicing is good for their brains. Yay for neurogenesis!<br /><br />Not surprisingly, many of them find this task difficult. The task is unlike most they've performed before, so understanding it is a challenge. Then keeping the x, y, and z dimensions straight is a challenge. Keeping track of the points is a challenge, especially for the ones with messy handwriting and other organizational challenges. And the class has been battered by swine flu and other absences; even with me posting video of the classes they miss, it isn't the same as being there.<br /><br />However, I had two conversations last week that made me laugh - and made me wonder how often students psych themselves out about tasks they shouldn't be so worried about. I explained the task to two students who had been absent and were confused. I had them practice creating points and quads so I would be sure they understood what to do. The first one looked at me and said, "That's ALL?" She'd expected it to be so much harder. I think it <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span> harder when I first introduced it a couple of weeks ago, but even with the absence, her brain is more ready now.<br /><br />The second conversation was more troublesome. It was with a smart student who is insecure about her knowledge and occasionally very disorganized. I went through the material and she showed me she could do the task. We talked for a couple of minutes about the assignment. Then she said, "but I still don't get it." I asked what she didn't get, and she described general confusion with the task.<br />I asked, "do you know how to figure out a point like you did a couple of minutes ago?"<br />"Yes"<br />"Do you understand how to make a quad out of four points like you did a couple of minutes ago?"<br />"Yes"<br />"That's it. That's all there is to the assignment. Get the points, make the quads, and type it into the computer."<br />"But I'm <span style="font-style: italic;">confused</span>!"<br /><br />At that point the light bulb went on. So I looked at her and said, "No, you're not. You think this is supposed to be hard. So you're worried that you don't understand it because it doesn't seem as hard as you think it's supposed to be. Stop worrying and get to work."Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-37914508165628499312009-11-19T11:02:00.000-08:002010-02-12T08:43:30.225-08:00Selling classroom materials<a href="http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2009/11/18/norton_sales.html">Interesting followup</a> to a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/education/15plans.html">Times article</a> about teachers selling classroom materials.<br /><br />I fall squarely on the side of the capitalist teachers. As long as they're not violating their contracts, I don't think they have any moral obligation to go unpaid for their work.<br /><br />I have written curriculum for pay before, and I consider it to be owned by whoever paid for it - be it via contract for an outside group or through a summer curriculum development grant at my school. Curriculum I develop on my own for use in my classes is a different story.<br /><br />I can see an argument that developing curriculum is a part of a teachers' job, akin to being in the classroom teaching and assessing student work. In my case, my administration has made it clear that they don't really care if I change the curriculum; if I want to do so, it's on me to do it on my own time. Work I do on my own time appears to be my own, not of shared ownership with my employer. This is complex and revolves around a reasonable workday, summers off, and all kinds of "what is a teachers' own time?" questions. Hopefully few reasonable people truly believe that every moment of a teacher's life from September to June is owned by the school.<br /><br />Like copyright protection, if capitalism is leading to improved curriculum, then that's good. If making money on it is motivational and teachers refuse to write new curriculum and stick with the crummy old thing just because it's easy, that's not good for the students.<br /><br />I should note here that while I have substantially revised my curriculum this year, I have no plans to sell it. I simply think it's acceptable for teachers to do so.Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-27956608694369843272009-11-03T12:55:00.000-08:002010-02-12T08:43:30.237-08:00Being LazyThis week I'm teaching in a camp-like setting. I have ten students learning game programming, three hours per day. All of them chose to be here. I've never taught Scratch or game programming before.<br /><br />After a first quarter that went at breakneck speed and after finally turning in grades midway through last week, I'm really tired. I also have a towering list of projects to finish. So while I'd like to give my all to teaching game programming, there's just not a lot of 'all' to give. Also, it isn't assessed and I'd like to save more of my all for my real classes.<br /><br />So I'm being a lazy teacher. I always tell my students that the best programmers are lazy programmers - they look for ways to program that don't require a lot of effort. Thus, things like efficiency are important. Recursion is just an excuse to be lazy - do the least work possible and hand off the rest.<br /><br />In this case, I gave them an overview of Scratch yesterday in about 90 minutes and I've handed them lots of resources to use in making their games (like the Scratch reference guide and Scratch cards). They know what games are, they have lots of ideas, and mostly what I'm doing is getting out of their way.<br /><br />It's fascinating to watch them. First, they hate listening to me, so me not doing a lot of direct teaching is working for all of us very nicely. They're all engaged in what they're doing. And their styles are completely different. One is going methodically through all the handouts, following instructions and listening. One couldn't pay attention for the whole 90 minutes yesterday - by 10 minutes in she was taking the game and pushing it to the limits of her imagination. One student couldn't wait to get started on the game she'd thought up (Halo. For Scratch. By a girl.) Another one is spending huge amounts of time working with sounds.<br /><br />I love camp because I don't care much about the outcomes. No standards, just lots of time for the kids to explore and learn what they like. And they're learning tons, all of it individualized. It isn't a good replacement for regular school, but it's a pretty nice change from the daily grind. And I'm glad to be reminded that when I'm lazy, the students rise to the challenge.Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-54819402798294066462009-10-23T08:13:00.000-07:002010-02-12T08:43:30.247-08:00SuccessIt's been a long couple of weeks; we're definitely into the fall weather with the rain and the gray and the outrageous behavior and the cranky. (That would be outrageous behavior on the part of the students, with me playing the part of Cranky, but you probably knew that.)<br /><br />Two things happened in the last couple of days that made me feel great.<br /><br />One, it feels good to know where to find what you need. A friend of mine is doing some teacher professional development. He's been looking for examples of great technology use across the curriculum, specifically looking for a high return on the time invested. I brainstormed a few ideas with him, but it's been a couple of years since I've really thought about this topic, so while I still find it fun to think about, I don't have a lot of great fresh ideas.<br /><br />Last night I decided to invest an hour to see what I could find. I started with twitter, and thankfully, <a href="http://twitter.com/dougpete">@dougpete</a> had just posted the link to his daily links blog post. Even if I didn't already adore Doug, he's now my short-term personal hero because his blog, <a href="http://dougpete.wordpress.com/">Off The Record</a>, is a treasure trove of resources. I was able to compile a bunch of ideas for my friends just by stealing from Doug. (Thanks Doug!)<div><br /></div><div>Incidentally, the very, very best thing I found was the <a href="http://learningscience.org/">Learning Science</a> community. WOW. It is a collection - with annotation - of great resources for learning science. From tools like a huge stopwatch applet to online, video-enhanced games about stoichiometry to an interactive model ripple pool, it is awesome. </div><div><br /></div><div>Second, it is fun to feel smart. Yesterday I briefly hosted a woman from <a href="http://www.citizenschools.org/">Citizen Schools</a> who wanted to know more about my school. The way it worked out, she observed part of my class rather than just getting the tour-and-discussion. The kids are working on digitizing color pictures, so she asked about it. I ended up explaining digitizing, run-length encoding, compression, and number systems to her. I feel kind of bad, because I should have been giving her an overview of what the school is about, which is not really run-length encoding, as you might guess. But I surprised myself with how much computer science I know. (Stop laughing.) It was fun. I think it was even fun for her. </div>Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-85805476681144137182009-08-25T20:25:00.000-07:002010-02-12T08:43:30.263-08:00PerceptionAtul Gawande's article, "<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all">The Itch</a>" is an interesting look at the mechanism of itching. My favorite part, though, is this:<br /><blockquote>A new scientific understanding of perception has emerged in the past few decades, and it has overturned classical, centuries-long beliefs about how our brains work—though it has apparently not penetrated the medical world yet. The old understanding of perception is what neuroscientists call “the naïve view,” and it is the view that most people, in or out of medicine, still have. We’re inclined to think that people normally perceive things in the world directly. We believe that the hardness of a rock, the coldness of an ice cube, the itchiness of a sweater are picked up by our nerve endings, transmitted through the spinal cord like a message through a wire, and decoded by the brain.</blockquote><blockquote>In a 1710 “Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,” the Irish philosopher George Berkeley objected to this view. We do not know the world of objects, he argued; we know only our mental ideas of objects. “Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and figures—in a word, the things we see and feel—what are they but so many sensations, notions, ideas?” Indeed, he concluded, the objects of the world are likely just inventions of the mind...<br /></blockquote>Although the article goes on to make it clear that this isn't complete, doesn't it sound like perception is just based on mental models?<div><br /></div><div>I've been thinking a lot about simulations lately, and this article makes it seem like even fairly poor simulations could be surprisingly realistic if they abstract the right things or if people are able to get past the perception that what they're experiencing is a simulation:<br /><blockquote>The images in our mind are extraordinarily rich. We can tell if something is liquid or solid, heavy or light, dead or alive. But the information we work from is poor—a distorted, two-dimensional transmission with entire spots missing. So the mind fills in most of the picture. You can get a sense of this from brain-anatomy studies. If visual sensations were primarily received rather than constructed by the brain, you’d expect that most of the fibres going to the brain’s primary visual cortex would come from the retina. Instead, scientists have found that only twenty per cent do; eighty per cent come downward from regions of the brain governing functions like memory. Richard Gregory, a prominent British neuropsychologist, estimates that visual perception is more than ninety per cent memory and less than ten per cent sensory nerve signals...<br /></blockquote><blockquote>The account of perception that’s starting to emerge is what we might call the “brain’s best guess” theory of perception: perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. The mind integrates scattered, weak, rudimentary signals from a variety of sensory channels, information from past experiences, and hard-wired processes, and produces a sensory experience full of brain-provided color, sound, texture, and meaning. We see a friendly yellow Labrador bounding behind a picket fence not because that is the transmission we receive but because this is the perception our weaver-brain assembles as its best hypothesis of what is out there from the slivers of information we get. Perception is inference.</blockquote><div>The article goes on to talk about the use of mirrors for phantom limb syndrome and other more interesting things. The idea is to reset the brain, so it stops thinking it is getting sensations that it isn't.</div><div><br /></div><div>As always, I am thrilled when (a) computer science shows up in real life and (b) I guess right:</div><div><blockquote>Researchers at the University of Manchester, in England, have gone a step beyond mirrors and fashioned an immersive virtual-reality system for treating patients with phantom-limb pain. Detectors transpose movement of real limbs into a virtual world where patients feel they are actually moving, stretching, even playing a ballgame. So far, five patients have tried the system, and they have all experienced a reduction in pain. Whether those results will last has yet to be established. But the approach raises the possibility of designing similar systems to help patients with other sensor syndromes. How, one wonders, would someone with chronic back pain fare in a virtual world? The Manchester study suggests that there may be many ways to fight our phantoms.</blockquote></div><div>I wish the article was accessible to my students; it would be interesting to talk to them about perception and simulation. I might still try, or use the article for differentiation purposes. </div><div><div><br /></div></div></div>Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-44138955455770126132009-08-08T10:22:00.000-07:002010-02-12T08:43:30.282-08:00Relinquishing tight controlThe link to "<a href="http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-fa07/le_fa07_myview.cfm">Death to the Syllabus</a>" is going around the twitterverse. I must admit that the first third of the essay did not fully engage me; though I'm not sure why I persevered to read the whole thing, I'm glad I did because the last third was excellent enough to comment on.<div><br /></div><div>Mano Singham makes a case that the traditional college syllabus, full of specific rules and consequences for tiny infractions, is a Very Bad Idea. "The implicit message of the modern course syllabus is that the student will not do anything unless bribed by grades or forced by threats." He goes on to mention,</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 16px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><blockquote>There is a vast research literature on the topic of motivation to learn, and one finding screams out loud and clear: controlling environments have been shown consistently to <em>reduce </em>people’s interest in whatever they are doing, even when they are doing things that would be highly motivating in other contexts.</blockquote></span></div><div>He laments that there is a negative cycle between students and teachers, where teachers do not feel comfortable making judgements about students' performance and behavior, where they instead create new rules to handle each situation. He mentions that making individual judgement calls is time-consuming and that in our legalistic society, teachers may feel defensive about making individualized decisions. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the final section, he describes an experiment he's been performing in his courses for the past several years, where he gives a very open-ended syllabus, develops a classroom culture, then asks the students to create their own policies. He finds that students entrust his judgement and for the most part decline to make many specific rules. </div><div><br /></div><div>It should not be surprising that I feel validated and encouraged by this essay. Without grades at my school, we rely largely on rubric scoring. (I recently discovered that the word "rubric" can have many meanings, what I'm thinking of is pictured <a href="http://www.thinkinggear.com/tools/rubrics_about.cfm">here</a>.) My rubrics tend to be vague, when I even make them at all. I do give students the list of criteria I'm looking at - algorithmic complexity, creativity, good documentation, whatever. But I hate rubrics that are overly specific, mostly because I hate grading that way. An example:</div><div><br /></div><div>On our website rubric, one of the things we look for is good writing. Some of that is web-appropriate writing, like shortish paragraphs and clear sentences. Some of it is just plain-old good writing: correct spelling, good grammar, that kind of thing. Example rubrics are "specific." 0-1 misspellings will get you an A. 2-3 misspellings will get you a B. 4-5 a C, and so forth. Can I tell you how interested I am in spending quality time hunting down every misspelled word in a website and counting them? For every student? And then there's a whole list of <i>other</i> criteria to look for. I have better things to do with my time than count misspelled words. Especially since I'll then have to cross-reference with the list of kids who have accommodations for learning differences and can't be expected to spell correctly. And the kids who write more - which usually means a better project - will be penalized because they have more opportunities for misspellings. (Oh look, I got started on this. Aren't you lucky?) </div><div><br /></div><div>Instead of putting specific thresholds of how many misspelled words, I tell the kids that spelling and grammar count, and if the spelling and grammar are bad enough to interfere with the quality of the project, they get dinged. But the rubric looks like, "Excellent grammar and spelling", "Good grammar and spelling", "Poor grammar and spelling", not specific numbers.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the one hand, I understand that the common thinking is that students want specific guidelines. And yet, so much of life is in vague judgements. The kids know what excellent grammar looks like. They know what poor grammar looks like. They know how to get from poor to good (find an editor, use software tools...) and I don't think that any of our lives are enhanced by suggesting that in a whole website the difference between an A project and a B project is one misspelled word. </div><div><br /></div><div>I think that by being vague in this way, and then being willing to engage in discussions with the students if they disagree with our assessments, we help students develop their own judgements. They should have a sense of what good grammar looks like, one they can apply without a teacher telling them if they're right. (Oh right, I'm a computer science teacher, not an English teacher. They should have a sense of what a well-documented, neatly coded program looks like, how about that?) Being open to the discussion is an important corollary - students should be able to question, teachers should have reasons, and teachers should be open to being convinced, though not too open.</div><div><br /></div><div>The place where I'm less secure, but unlikely to change, is that I - like Mano Singham, I think - have a holistic view of assessment. I know teachers who take the scores on the parts of the rubric and essentially average them into a score for the whole project. I don't do that. You can do very well on a bunch of parts of a project and still not have it gel into a cohesive excellent project. You can have a bunch of mediocre parts and still make something amazing, much greater than the parts. In life, we're graded on overall impression, not by whether we had two misspellings or three.</div>Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-50940311202693015292009-08-06T08:49:00.000-07:002010-02-12T08:43:30.291-08:00Define the problemThe ever-popular Seth Godin has a post about "<a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/08/bear-shaving.html">shaving the bear</a>", which he uses as a memorable analogy for the idea of solving the symptoms of a problem rather than addressing the root cause of the problem. (It's based on a PSA about shaving bears so they wouldn't overheat due to global warming.)<div><br /></div><div>Possibly the best lesson I ever learned from the best manager I ever had was about articulating the <i>problem</i>, not the solution you want. (We'll call the manager TZ.) People tend to ask for the solution they want as though not having that solution is the problem. Sometimes that's true, but more often there are many solutions to the actual problem, and by articulating the true problem, many solutions become possible.</div><div><br /></div><div>It came up because of this situation: TZ was working an event. A small group approached him and asked if he knew where a janitor was. The answer was no, but TZ stopped them and said, "why do you need a janitor?" Because they were out of toilet paper in the men's room, and a janitor would know where it was stored. TZ didn't know where a janitor could be found, but he turned to a nearby woman and asked if she could go into the women's room and bring a roll or two of toilet paper to one of the men and he could take it into the men's room. Actual problem solved. Requested solution unneeded. </div><div><br /></div><div>The most memorable time I've applied it was in the process that resulted in my school becoming a 1:1 laptop school. It began with the teachers asking for a computer lab. The thing is, we already <i>had</i> a computer lab, but it was full all the time due to space constraints. Putting in another lab would only provide access to teachers who happened to already teach in that room - the space constraints would still be there. What teachers really wanted was more access to computing, access when they wanted it to enhance their teaching. A lab wasn't the best solution to that problem. A 1:1 laptop program, though oddly controversial, solve that and other problems, like inequitable home access. (Why did I find the controversy odd? We're in silicon valley, we'd be solving problems, and it wasn't going to cost any more than the previous solution.)</div><div><br /></div><div>The first step of both the engineering design process and the scientific method are about defining the problem. Isn't it fun when life lessons are embedded in science? I wonder if it helps kids internalize lessons when we can show the same idea in many domains. </div>Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-78124249344212010112009-07-24T19:53:00.000-07:002010-02-12T08:43:30.310-08:00Lost in syntax part 2 (or: OMG I'm going to cry in front of all these people)<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">So as <a href="http://geek-knitter.blogspot.com/2009/07/lost-in-syntax-part-1-or-omg-im-going.html">I said</a>, Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday were okay. I was kind of learning some things, but I was also getting frustrated because I didn’t feel like I understood what was going on. I take excellent, copious notes, but I felt like I was being given plug-and-chug code. They’d give code examples in lecture, pointing at parts and saying, “this part does this thing” and then we’d go to the lab and face a very similar question. Simple substitution, figure out what operator to put where, and Bob’s your uncle, you’ve got working code. I kept trying to say (mostly to my peers, not to the teacher) that I didn’t feel like I understood the big picture, but I didn’t know what to ask and I had working code, so what’s the problem? I did ask the teacher some questions, but they were usually pretty specific and definitely not of the “I don’t think I understand anything that’s going on” variety. Especially since I clearly DID understand some of what was going on, I just couldn’t generalize it. I felt like I didn’t ‘get it’ but other than saying that I felt like I had no context, I couldn’t articulate what I meant.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">OBJECT LESSON 5: Your students won’t necessarily come to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">you</i> for help, even when they should. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">OBJECT LESSON 6: Some of your students are inductive learners and some are deductive learners. It’s a good idea to try to present material in multiple ways, since some of them probably won’t understand what you’re talking about the first way you say it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Thursday morning, we started working on stuff where a lot of people in the room had significant prior experience, while I have almost none. So we went from “you’re all experienced programmers” to “you all know this” when for me, that was completely false. Now, I wasn’t alone, and some people were asking questions, but mostly I just wrote everything down and figured when I got to lab, I could plug-and-chug the code like I’d been doing, since that seemed to be how this all works.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The key with plug-and-chug is that you either need some idea of what you’re plugging or you have to have truly perfect notes. I had neither. I had typos, I had things I’d missed copying. Syntax error after error after error, none of which mean anything to me. Also, the TAs for the course were largely busy, and instead of needing an occasional pointer, I needed someone to sit next to me and debug my code. Even going and asking my friend only made things worse – he was really nice about explaining it, but the overwhelm had shut me down again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Indeed, I figured out much later that I actually DO have some experience with what we were being asked to do, but in my panic, I forgot all of it, or that I even should know it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">OBJECT LESSON 7: Just because your students have successfully done something in the past doesn’t mean they’re going to be able to do it right now, without extra support. (Note: sometimes they’re being lazy – in the bad way – so choose your response with care.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Example: I talked to the parents of an 8-month-old who recently learned to sit up. The problem is, when she learned to sit up, she forgot that she knew how to lie down, so she would sit up, want to not sit up anymore, and start wailing because she didn’t know what else to do. They’re hoping she re-learns how to lie down again before they lose their minds from lack of sleep. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">After lunch on Thursday, my friend and I ended up in some conversation about the material and my understanding or lack thereof. Suffice it to say that he finally figured out that I had absolutely no conceptual understanding of the material. The conversation was mockable. He wanted me to describe linguistically how to solve some of the programs I’d coded. I would say, “well, in [language]…” and he’d respond, “not in [language]. How would you DO it?” I had no idea how to describe what I’d programmed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">OBJECT LESSON 8: Just because your students can do something, it doesn’t mean they understand what they’re doing. I’ve had lots of students say, “I don’t understand” and my response was, “but look, you can DO it!” Doing isn’t the important part, understanding is. Doing is important in the workplace. Understanding is important in school. If they understand, then likely they’ll be able to do at some point.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>In 15 minutes, my friend explained the big picture, the most fundamental concept relating to everything we’d learned, using quasi-programming examples. It was concrete, it was clear, and I got it.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">OBJECT LESSON 9: It’s important to explain the big picture and talk about why some of the language constructs are the way they are. Hopefully you’ve chosen the language you have because it does the things you’re trying to do well. Why is that? How should students be thinking about the problems they’re trying to solve with their code? What’s the context for the code?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My friend, consummate teacher he is, kept quizzing me for the rest of the workshop, even on things that were hard, and once I got it, I was able to keep getting it. I started going back to re-do the exercises, understanding what’s happening without fear. I still probably won’t switch languages, but I’m willing to try some things and continue giving it a chance.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My friend would want me to give you the final object lesson:</p><p class="MsoNormal">OBJECT LESSON 10: Stop thinking it’s hard. My friend is convinced that a major barrier to my understanding is I’d been told how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">hard</i> these concepts are and what a hard time I’d have understanding them. He’s convinced that my fear got in the way of learning. How often do we transmit to students that things are hard and they’ll probably have trouble? Self-fulfilling prophecies can be profound barriers to learning.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">One thing I’m going to do is describe this experience to my students at the beginning of the year. I know that some of them get overwhelmed like I did, I know some of them end up feeling much more stupid than they are, and I suspect some of them end up feeling bad about CS when really they’re just not ready or I’m not teaching it the right way to them. If nothing else, I hope that telling them this story will let them know how much empathy I have for them. </p> <!--EndFragment-->Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-25268994489086490532009-07-21T05:35:00.000-07:002010-02-12T08:43:30.300-08:00Lost in syntax part 1 (or: OMG I'm going to cry in front of all these people)<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve spent the week at a workshop, learning a programming language. It’s been quite an instructive experience, full of object lessons on what computer science is like for some of my students. (I want to note that the workshop teachers and organizers were lovely and in general I do not blame them for what happened.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The first day was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">great</i>. This language has some terrific features, particularly for thinking about math. I could see how it would be a better fit for certain applications than anything else I’ve seen. I could feel my brain starting to think in interesting new ways that will make me a better programmer in any language. I felt really optimistic.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The first night, I got in a huge fight with my husband. This is relevant because it meant that I started Tuesday in a not-good place emotionally, which had nothing to do with the workshop. Think your student’s personal lives don’t affect their performance in your class? HA. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">OBJECT LESSON 1: Students bring their lives into the room with them. Their experience can vary dramatically from day to day for reasons that have nothing to do with you, but will affect their performance and behavior when they’re with you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Tuesday started okay. The material was getting more complex, but I was keeping up. There was a little recursion, but they don’t call it recursion, the instructor just said “you’re experienced programmers, you know what that is” and I wondered what it was, until someone else called it recursion and I could see it. Oh, okay. I’ve never actually programmed recursion, but I was still feeling like I could figure it out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then she used a construct she had used the day before, in a way that the mental model I’d created of what that construct meant didn’t work. And everyone nodded. And I didn’t know what it meant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And for a minute or two, that was okay, because hey, I was sure I could figure that out too. Only she kept using it. First, I was distracted, because I kept trying to figure out what the code meant. Second, you can’t do recursion without this thing. And I was still not figuring out what it means. I started realizing that if her use of this thing makes sense (and I trust it does) and I can’t fit it into my mental model of this construct, then my mental model must be wrong. Which means I didn’t actually understand anything yesterday, and in fact haven’t understood anything after the first hour.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">At which point my brain completely shut down. Oh, I kept taking notes, in between trying hard not to cry, because oh my god, I really am as dumb as I have ever feared.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">OBJECT LESSON 2: A student who gets upset stops thinking. The more upset they are, the less thinking they can do. While they’re coping with all these overwhelming emotions, if you’re moving on, they might as well be absent. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">THOUGHT EXERCISE 1: On students walking out of class. This is only the second time in my life that I’ve almost walked out of a class because what was happening in the room was so terrible for me that I couldn’t cope. I don’t leave because I find it unacceptably rude to the lecturer. I know some teachers who disagree and freely allow students to come and go when they need a break.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">At the break I went and asked the teacher about my original point of confusion, and we worked out an explanation I could accept. Why didn’t I ask during the lecture? Because everyone else seemed to get it and no one else was asking any questions. I usually ask even in those situations, but it was compounded by the fact that she kept telling us how experienced we were, and I kept feeling like a fraud because I don’t consider myself an experienced programmer at all. (Can you say “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome">imposter syndrome</a>”?)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">OBJECT LESSON 3: Just because many students appear to understand the material, doesn’t mean they all do. Make sure your class culture encourages student questions and not just student answers. Imagine how much faster I would have recovered if I had just asked what that word meant right away. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">OBJECT LESSON 4: What you think is a complement (“you’re an experienced programmer”) isn’t necessarily heard positively. The best complements are direct, specific, and personal. In this case, I think she was using “you’re experienced programmers” to mean “I’m not going to teach you something important here” which would have been easier for me to hear.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">At lunch, I spent a while talking to a friend who further clarified the material, while carefully standing far enough away that if I started crying he wouldn’t get wet. (It isn’t an object lesson, but if a colleague is on the verge of tears, it is okay to give them a hug. Or maybe that’s only true at the hippy-dippy school where I work, but I’ve literally provided a shoulder to cry on more than once.) </p> <p class="MsoNormal">By the end of lunch, I felt better. Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday went back to being okay. I felt pretty confident that the storm had passed, though things weren’t quite sunny yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="border:none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt; padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in">In fact, Wednesday night I went out to dinner with a long-time friend who has nothing to do with CS Ed, we spent four hours catching up and gossiping, and I felt so happy and glad to be out of thinking about CS for a while. I was sure Thursday was going to be the opposite of Tuesday. But that is fodder for a <a href="http://geek-knitter.blogspot.com/2009/07/lost-in-syntax-part-2-or-omg-im-going.html">second post</a>...</p> </div> <!--EndFragment-->Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6550012579849338868.post-4873471989912305002009-07-18T08:20:00.000-07:002010-02-12T08:43:30.321-08:00Subvert the dominant paradigmEarlier this week, Alfred Thompson <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/alfredth/archive/2009/07/14/when-the-power-goes-off-in-the-computer-lab.aspx">posed the question</a>, "what would you do if the lights (and power) went out in your computer science classroom?" At nearly the same time, I was interviewed about "computer science tools" as part of someone's dissertation research. One of the questions was, "if you had to choose only one tool to work with and couldn't have any others, which would you choose?"<div><br /></div><div>Both Robb Cutler and <a href="http://www.groovicus.com/">Chad Clites</a> have the best answer: use pencil and paper. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am saddened to admit this was not my first answer. </div><div><br /></div><div>The dominant paradigm of computing education is to teach technology. In the APCS course, are we really teaching the major concepts of computer science? Or are we really teaching Java, and using some of those concepts along the way? It's endemic in the way we talk about our curriculum. We teach "programming with Alice" or "simulations with Flash". If we're teaching simulation-building, why does it matter what tool we use? But we get caught up in the tools, partly because we tend to love them, and the concepts and ideas become, at best, co-equal, and more often subsumed in importance. </div><div><br /></div><div>The reality is that my current curriculum would not move forward without power. I've faced this problem repeatedly over the last three years and it hasn't been pretty. Last year I spent the first week of school without access to my classroom, having to teach outside. So instead of starting the "real" curriculum (animation with Flash), I did CS Unplugged activities. Sure, I think my students got something out of learning about sorting and searching. But the reality is that the lessons were totally disconnected from the curriculum. The ideas weren't reinforced throughout the year, the concepts weren't connected to anything else they learned, and I suspect that few of them remember anything about it. </div><div><br /></div><div>We need a new kind of curriculum, that is concept-centered, more like math and science curricula, that sends implicit and explicit messages to the students about what is important, and where what is important is the concepts, not the technology. In the same way that experiments are the implementation of science, but what we teach is scientific thinking and important concepts and knowledge, we need to have programming and computing be the implementation of computer science, but teach computational thinking and important concepts and knowledge. The computer needs to be a <i>tool</i>, not the center of the program.</div>Wicked Teacher of the Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08840748429941439783noreply@blogger.com3